COOL YULE

Happy Christmas to all our friends. The Croziers have been a little preoccupied in recent weeks with various medical appointments and preparations for the Christmas holidays. Since we try to make as many home-made or locally produced gifts as possible, it takes up a lot of time in the kitchen or devising packaging. I had already decided to get small gifts from local makers or craftspeople rather than large stores with only partial success. We have been to a couple of craft fairs in the local villages, which are always good fun and where all the ex pats and local traders get together to sell their wares.

On top of this the weather has been stunningly good. Not warm exactly, but with deep blue skies, sparkling sunshine and gleaming snow on the mountain tops; lungs full of the fresh air each morning gives everyone a glad-to-be-alive feeling. It was too good an opportunity to miss getting heavy items washed, dried and aired and the house swept and mopped before earning some quiet time for contemplation or a “cup of coffee moment” on the terrace where it is warmer in the sunshine than inside the house.

Art School closed unexpectedly for a few weeks over Christmas, but the Makers Group organised a Christmas Meal in Rethymno for a staggeringly low cost and we had a chance to exchange cards, swap news and enjoy a large procession of meze dishes with a glass of wine and still be home at a respectable hour!

Building on last year's experience, I prepared a large dish of cakes and Father Christmas chocolates to have handy in case carol singers turned up as they did last year with lots of children, adults and tinkling triangles in the street outside the door. Predictably, this did not happen this year, so we have a large dish of cakes and chocs which I have covered up and will try not to eat in case they come at New Year instead!

We fitted in medical appointments all on one day in Rethymnon and K saw the Ophthalmologist and Urologist for eye examination and three-monthly injection. We are trying to get the process set in motion for his cataracts to be dealt with but it will be a while before he is ready. After several weeks of enquiries to Amazon, a box containing an aid to help with socks and stockings arrived, which helps with the putting on of things, but is no help at all in getting them off! The effort for both procedures is like an hour in the gym! We need a concerted Crozier effort in the innovations department as K wants to get as independent as he can.

Meanwhile, the fine weather has meant that the olive picking has continued and all the farm buggies and trucks set off early each morning and return when the sun is going down and the Olive Mill is humming until late in the night. A few small presents to our villager neighbours promoted many bags of eggs and litre bottles of the most beautiful olive oil, all fresh from this years crop (along with other offerings of home made wine and raki … help). Our friends Kostas and Angelliki seem to like English chocolates and a visit by the English Grocer to one of the Christmas Fairs, meant that I could get them a big tin of Celebrations – utter luxury for them! So the commonplace for us is in stark comparison again. All our friends enjoy Christmas here. There are no crowds, traffic jams or heaving shopping centres. We have been given gifts of chutneys, pickled onions, home made biscuits, hand made knits and beautiful cards. No one has much money, but all the creative efforts were lovely and very thoughtful. Our hosts for Christmas Lunch put on a most beautiful meal and laboured over home made gifts too! Other guests had made up Red Cross parcels, wrapped in brown paper and string and which contained an assortment of small items, similar to a Christmas stocking! It was lots of fun!

We have had some heartfelt prayer moments too. Not only to see and hear Christmas celebrations from round the world via on line programmes, but some CIC friends have the husband (Tony) in the intensive care unit in the local hospital due to pneumonia and they have induced a coma, done a tracheostomy and all the same procedures that K went through a year before. What a Christmas for his wife (Gianna) and how I sympathise with her! So we have made our way to the local church to light candles and pray for a swift recovery. I know that coming out of ICU to a normal ward in the hospital will be even more difficult for his wife and hope she will keep in touch with us. At least they are nearer to their friends in Rethymnon.

The sound of running water has stopped me in my tracks; it is now pouring with rain, so Boxing Day will be different from Christmas! We send you love and greetings for a joyful time and a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

HOME AND AWAY

 After a short second stint in the UK, Mrs Crozier is back in Crete unwinding.

The first few UK days were quite dry and fine which helped a lot and made things easier but later on, the clouds gathered and the weather started to get much colder. UK friends who helped give lifts, cooked wonderful meals and offered storage space were so appreciated. I even braved South Quay in Southampton on Black Friday weekend, which was a bit of a mistake as the crowds were so overwhelming and I didn't need any shopping. However the light lunch at John Lewis's Place to Eat in bright sunshine made it slightly easier and we escaped in one piece. Everywhere we went, the pressure of people and traffic seemed worse than ever and I was glad not to be driving.

House clearing was hard going, but the help offered was marvellous and the whole contents of the house in Hampshire were divided and taken away by vans and car to various new locations or for storage for a short while. The stress of getting repossession of our home and dealing with the aftermath made it very unappealing, so K and I were glad to cut our losses, sell up and prepare to look for somewhere away from the crowded South East. After a frantic week of packing and cleaning, I dropped off the keys at the Estate Agents to await completion the following day and set off for a stayover at Gatwick on Thursday night. Just as I was turning off my mobile to board the plane on Friday morning, the Solicitors called to say the transaction had completed. Brilliant. It had all worked out surprisingly well. I slept all the way on the flight to Athens and then after a short break at Athens airport was wide awake to Heraklion.

I was boiling on the plane in my winter woollies. The flight was stuffed to capacity with every seat taken for Friday night and so squashed that even if the Greek travellers had the self discipline to take one piece of carry-on luggage each, there still would not have been enough bin space for all the bags, bundles and boxes that people, air hostesses and strong men were trying to wrestle into the space above their heads. Since Aegean Airlines have started to charge for even one piece of checked luggage, it has caused mayhem on the planes and they are always requesting for people to check their hand baggage into the hold and pick it up at the carousel. I did not mind doing it, but would not always want to surrender my bag due to my odd assortment of ex-pat stuff which is sometimes quite fragile. On this occasion, it actually made life a bit easier.

I can't help thinking that the ground staff who operate the luggage scanning machines at the security department must see some odd sights. I memorised the peculiar assortment I had packed: coat hooks, a door knob, shaving oil, a new pan for the bread maker, new filters for the water filter jug, Christmas wrapping paper (found in the loft), various treasured bits which I thought had been disposed of, a hair dryer from the UK house to replace the one that had broken here in Crete and a small oven pan. You can buy oven pans here, but they only sell ENORMOUS ones, and K and I have no need to cook so much food at one go these days. Similarly cake tins and dishes all seem to be made for huge family meals rather than sedate suppers for two. There may be a lesson in that somewhere. Anyway, it was time now to think about Christmas Fare Cretan style and to make some homemade mincemeat (which I didn't have room for!)

The house was warm and welcoming on our arrival, K had lit the log burner which was warming the whole of the ground floor, my lovely friends who had met me from the airport brought a bag of the most beautiful mandarin oranges freshly picked from their tree as a gift and K had some food ready to cook if needs be – but the hour was too late to tackle a meal after all the journey food.

A stormy weekend was perfect for looking out the Christmas decorations

Cretan weather had been really hot in my absence and lots of people had been out in their gardens or on the beaches enjoying some warm December sun. I stopped off on the way back from the supermarket on Saturday and took a short walk down the sea wall just to sit on a bench in the sun for a few minutes, look at the harbour and count my blessings. It was so great to be back on this beautiful island to enjoy a lead up to Christmas completely emptied of the usual hassle. On Sunday the winter rain storms started up like an orchestra – loud thunder, dips in the electric power and heavy rain all night. We have been appreciating the new porch roof sevenfold! Enough for now; it is time to sweep up after the deluge!

HARVEST HOME

 We have had all our plates spinning on sticks for a few weeks now and I have had to keep running to catch up most of the time, so apologies for lack of blog jottings.

Innovations: We installed nice looking rustic bamboo over our porch when we first moved to the little stone house because we needed some covering to keep the sun off the front of the house and, having only visited Crete in holiday months had erroneously thought that this would be the right answer. Several winters in Crete (and last winter in particular) had changed my mind completely because although the bamboo looked pleasingly rustic, stood up to the Cretan winds and kept the porch in shade all summer, the impact of tropical rainstorms plus so much dust and dirt were a different matter altogether and foraging for damp logs in the cold and wet, then sweeping and mopping the tiles every day during the wet winter months was a miserable business when I had more important things to do. Rik our friendly builder came to give us some ideas. I just managed to get the water proofing on the main house roof before the heavens opened for the usual October rains. After dodging rain storms and horrendous weather for a couple of weeks, Rik rolled up with some insulated porch roofing which is doing a wonderful job of keeping the porch dry, the woodpile protected and there is even room to get laundry under cover - just! Worth every euro and we are pleased with it. We hope it won't be too hot and airless next summer, but time will tell.

While all this was happening, great friends from the UK came over for a week at the start of November. I was worried because the weather had been awful and all the tavernas, tourist shops and cafes had shut for the season and I wondered whether there would be enough to keep everyone busy and happy. Fortunately, they did not want to do anything too taxing, we took a walk round the headland, paid a visit to the Makers Craft session, cooked, shopped and strolled around Rethymno in really quite bright warm days and even shocked the locals by swimming a few times! The Scrabble Board came out with disastrous results! (I lost by a mile). It was lovely to see them and the car behaved itself very well on its way to and from the airport despite being a bit elderly.

Then we were getting all sorts of odd questions about the house sale in the UK and we were grateful for Leo's input about doorlock enquiries and double glazing attributes. K and I looked completely clueless and slightly derailed by the intensity of such questions. We hope we are close to exchange and completion now. Wherever will we store all our bits and pieces while we look for somewhere in Staffordshire?

My Greek is beginning to improve. I managed to slowly translate a phrase made by one of our neighbours when I commented on the heavy rain. “Creasoumay vrechy sto yelyes” … after a minute or two racking my brains I realised that the locals were pleased to have lots of water on their fields because “they needed water for the olive trees” and to swell the olives before harvesting. All the cafeneons are alive with the discussions of the olive crop this year. There is a cacophony of vans and trucks firing up and disappearing by 8,00 a.m. every morning with a selection of sacks, nets, generators and twirly sticks which they use for the olive harvesting. At night, a large buzzing noise from the top of the village means that the Olive Mill (curiously painted vivid green which can be seen for miles) is working long hours to give the cold pressed oil. It is so good for everyone. We have new neighbours in the run-down building across the road who spent a few weeks restoring the house, replacing and treating the windows and they eventually moved in. It is nice to see washing hanging up, lights at the windows and a plant pot outside the front door. A nasty dark storage cellar, home to cats, birds and other creepy crawlies has now had wooden doors constructed and painted. It looks much more welcoming now than in the time of the former tenants - roosting pigeons on all the window sills who made so much mess. In fact, many of the empty village houses are beginning to be reoccupied by newcomers. Nice.

We have also discovered and sampled our village doctor who calls every Friday morning in an office just off the village square. You queue for ages but she takes all the prescriptions to the Pharmacy in Panormo and Niko the Pharmacist drives back with the medicines and delivers them to the door later in the day! How great is that? Kimon doesn't need a car or lift at all.

I have been saving the best news until last: K had the lowest (=good) PSA result of all today from the lab – it had gone down to 0.089 – an improvement on three weeks ago which means that something (we hope the radiotherapy or hormone treatment) has made a difference. We are just thanking our lucky stars and good friends who have cheered us on. Harvest Thanksgiving has a real intensity for us this year. Yesterday and today I have been making jars of chutney, marmalade, home made fudge for a table top sale over the weekend, so life has been hectic and there doesn't seem to be any let up. I'm looking forward to relaxing in front of the log burner and a few sleepy, winter evenings but I don't see it happening for yet a while!

LUSTRAL BASINS AND OTHER LUXURIES

K and I are back after five days away from home in South Eastern Crete. The weather has been wonderful with bright fine weather – not too hot by day and cool at night. Perfect for travelling, walking and swimming. We were booked for an archaeological weekend at Kato Zachros and, as it is quite a longwinded journey with a few mountains to cross, we had booked a stopover night at Sitia in the East of Crete.

The road to Sitia was a bit gruelling and impatient Cretan drivers kept overtaking us on roads with hairpin bends. For one moment I found myself three abreast on a narrow road and with another car coming the other way and had to take evasive action very fast. I am always shocked that drivers think it OK to overtake cars which are already overtaking, but there is little or no fear, or indeed discipline at all among Cretan drivers. We were doubly glad to travel in one piece and for the rather old underpowered car to have made the journey safely.

We stopped for a meal break at the Panorama Taverna in both directions because the view was splendid, the parking was just off the road and the people were nice. On the island out at sea were more archaeological remains, but we had to read about them and move on this time round.

Sitia was wonderful for us. It didn't look so special to others, but K was able to come down in the hotel lift and walk straight out along a beautifully paved promenade to cafes, shops and kiosks as well as the harbour. There was disabled parking right by the beach. I could nip straight out in my swimming togs for a swim, just as the sun came up over the mountains and return back for a hot shower just in time for breakfast. Definitely our sort of place these days. The sea water is really warm at this time of year and the beaches nearly empty. With a number of prayers on my mind, I took a long walk up lots of steps to the church in the centre of town, but nobody was home.

We pressed on across more high plains, mountainous passes and small remote villages to Zachros and Kato Zachros. There is a small Minoan palace there which has been uncovered in the 1960s – late enough not to have been spoiled or desecrated. We could trace the outer walls of the palace, various wings, workshop areas and the remains of houses in a small town at a higher level. The port road was a raised paved roadway which continued to the sea (where a large taverna now sits at the water's edge). It was here we had a talk and our Archaeologist friend Don Eveley explained all about the remains, their significance and brought the town back to life for us. What to us looked like four straight channels of mud were the conserved remains of a potters kiln, a narrow dog-leg staircase down to a square hole below ground level a lustral basin*, and a few crumbs dropped in a number of the water filled pools and cisterns in one part of the site brought forth a whole colony of terrapins who poked their heads out of the water or basked on nearby rocks. He had obviously been there before! As a few of us sat for a rest on large stones under the trees, he explained that it was probably just at this spot where the craftsmen from the workshops on the outer skirts of the palace would have stopped to take a break too. Beautiful ceramics and artefacts had been discovered on the site which were now in museums locally and in Heraklion. K and I continued to be amazed by the beauty and sophistication of fine arts and crafts from 4,000 years ago.

We stayed at a place called Yiannis Retreat. It was a bit away from the sea front via a long, rough track but so worth the journey when we arrived with small rustic stone built cottages fitted out in the most imaginative way. We had everything we needed for a nice stay and much, much more. It was so quiet there that K and I fear that we were the noisiest creatures there.

On the way home, we spent two nights at Sissi which was also pleasant. K began to walk further afield with his crutches to get as much exercise as possible. I did some sketching but we did not manage to find a swimming or fishing spot; the weather stayed fine every day. We arrived home long before mid-day on Wednesday feeling as if we had been away for a year and much refreshed. The mini break was just what the Doctor ordered!

* Lustral Basin is the name given to a small oblong underground closet reached by stairs shaped in a dog leg. They are found in most of the Minoan Palace workings in Crete, near the centre of the building and not on the outer limits. Nobody is sure, but the name was given to these areas by Sir Arthur Evans who initiated work at Knossos at the turn of the 20^th century and believed them to be used for some kind of religious rite of cleansing. There are ledges all around the stairs and base for articles and remains of large bowls excavated in some. After so many thousands of years, we can only make mystified guesses about their use.  

HELTER SKELTER

 After a very busy ten days in England, Mrs Crozier is back in Crete and her feet still haven't touched the ground. Pa Crozier nursed his sore tummy and stayed behind, and we hope it will be over the worst very soon.

I wanted to catch up with my Dad. He has been well placed in a nice nursing home after all his falls and mishaps last winter, and is very looked after beautifully by the staff and family. It would not be his first choice, but he is beginning to get used to it and seems happier now that he has Sky Sport available in his own space. Waited on hand and foot with wall-to-wall golf – what could be better? Predictably, he would not agree.

wet wipes from the surface of the washing machine

If anyone wants to persuade a friend of relative to give up smoking, they could have paid a visit to our little house in England that had been rented out to a rogue tenant and had only been re-possessed in June. I could not sleep a wink the first night there because the smell in the house was so horrible. Every piece of fabric needed to be laundered, blankets, sheets, curtains and carpets. Every hard surface was stained yellow and had to be washed down with sugar soap or redecorated. And even after this mammoth effort and windows and doors open for 10 days, there was still the odd sniff of nicotine which we couldn't eradicate. It was a truly horrible job and heaven knows what the rogue tenant's lungs look like. Our son, who gained possession a few weeks ago did not waste any time and just threw away most of our household items at the tip because of the smell and grime. Even though the house was not directly trashed, it was ruined slowly and surely by indirect means and we left a warm and comfortable home but would never want to return to it after all this. We were not surprised that the Open Day arranged by the Estate Agents did not attract any buyers until after it had been completely cleaned up.

On the plus side, my brilliant friends turned up in good heart and got to work with industrial carpet cleaners for a second go at the carpets, sorted boxes, took things to the charity shop and the tip and invited me for lovely meals during the week, which put on some spectacular weather while I was there. We left the house clean and tidy, with an empty loft, a tidier shed and a garden which dear Liz had forked over, weeded and cut back in a startlingly short space of time. My brother and his wife worked tirelessly to clear and chuck things away and gave me lifts all over the place. As friends and family go, I think I have the best ever.

Art Class - Tuesday

Once back in Crete, the pressure was still on. First we needed to get the tyres fixed on the car because their service over bumpy tracks was taking its toll - they seemed to be going down each week and needed pumping up. Our Greek MOT was also due, so we needed the car to be shipshape in preparation for that. We steeled ourselves to cope with Wednesday which was exceptionally busy paying the water bill, visiting the bank, getting the tyres fixed and meeting friends at Vinzi's all by 11.00 a.m. Impressed? We were. We also were under pressure to get our house tax paid, because the Greek Electricity Board which used to collect it, did not wish to any more, and we needed to collect a form from our Accountant. Botheration, it was much simpler with the Lekky Bill! Our Jobs to do list has had “Find an Accountant” at the top of it for the last year or so, but other matters have got in the way, so on Wednesday evening, we were introduced to a lady accountant in Perama and her son, who translated into English for us, while we puzzled out how to make up for our tardiness. We have to go back on Monday with lots of papers and 150 euros. It seems as if we have been giving away sheaves of money all week. She also insisted that we keep a large sum of money in a Greek bank, which we have avoided for quite a while.

The next day, we took the car to IKTEO for its MOT and it passed with flying colours. So tick another job done. I have never imagined such a luxurious vehicle testing station. Leather armchairs, spotlessly clean floors and loos, colour TV, coffee machine and a sweetie bowl on the coffee table. Lovely and cool, it makes having your car MOT'd quite an experience. K and I read the paper, looked at the Aloe Vera plants growing outside for BioHerb products and had quite a nice morning until we had to hand over the next 50 euros!

Aloe Vera cultivation for beauty products

We stopped in Panormo on the way home, because it was a spectacularly lovely day, with sparkling sunshine, not too hot and a calm sea. I jumped in the harbour for a quiet swim – once round the buoys and back to the shore feeling much better for the exercise.

We have to go to Heraklion tomorrow for K's next injection. He has not really recovered from the radiotherapy and his tummy is still not working normally which means he is stuck at home feeling helpless still and a bit sorry for himself. I will keep on with the horrible low residue diet for a while longer and hope he gets over the worst of it soon. So an hour trip to Heraklion for an injection is not top of his “want to do” list. I really hope the Doctors can suggest something to help him over the tummy upset stage.

The weather is on the change and rains will soon be here

So, its back on the road again tomorrow! Kalo dromo!

Post script. Car behaving better with new tyres. Drove all the way to Heraklion and queued to see the Doctor while loud alarms were going off and I wondered why. We needed to get a prescription for the injection and then have the injection. The noise was due to a cut in the power and put paid to the computers printing a prescription, so we had to get the Doctor to call our Pharmacist in Panormo and on a promise (for very expensive medicines) the Pharmacist agreed to get the supplies so long as we drove back to Heraklion on Monday with the packs from him to have the injection and to return to the Pharmacy with the prescription paper, once it could be printed out at the Hospital. Exhausted, stressed out, broke through petrol wastage, queues and bad temper? Ggrrrr!

AUTUMN BLESSINGS

September is here at last! A few clouds have appeared in the mountains and foothills and the nights are cooler. All of us who have endured a very hot summer are beginning to come alive again after keeping out of the baking sun for many weeks. K and I are so glad to be back home and resting after the hospital regime and he really is looking very well now. A normal diet will resume as soon as possible! I am also reading up on reflexology, because quite by accident, I realised how much it helped us both over the past few months to wallow in herbal footbaths and give massage for the bad leg but even more for the good leg which now does twice as much work.  It seemed to promote a sense of well-being and relaxation;  I think I will study a bit further.

We are beginning to get back into the swing of things and although I had three trips to the Dentist this week, the car developed an electrical fault and needed to go into the garage and my polarised driving prescription glasses had been lost over the period of hospital journeys. All these costs on top of everything else were very unwelcome, but all is done and dusted now. Costa Costa our musical optician made up my specs from my English prescription in 24 hours, the garage obtained the teeny tiny switchy thing required by the diagnostic computer and plugged it back in to make the car run more smoothly and stop cutting out when hot, and the dentist completed his excavations on Friday. I even managed to get to the CIC coffee morning and Art Class this week, so I have done quite well really and K will venture further when his tum settles down a bit. If you would like to see some of the art work we are doing in Kastellos, there is a website entitled Cretan Visual Arts where our teachers post up our work from time to time.

I will be back in the UK for a short spell to catch up with family there, so it may be a while before I can post the blog which is almost impossible by Kindle! However, K thought that it was about time that he said a few words or two … so ….

OK – lighten up guys. This me talking.

I have rarely been short of words, as many may tell you. They are indeed food to the soul and the stuff of dreams. I can understand M's deep fears that our new life in Crete could be cut short, and that she may have had to face a “volte face” (poor grammatical construction) and miss out on the freedom and peace that we came here to find four years ago. By now you have probably gathered that there is no such thing as a quiet village life in Crete. The talk is constantly of grapes, melons, lemons and goats. The volume is up to “police” (11) level in the Kafeneon down the lane. Everybody has their own opinion of how much water, when to harvest /prune and “how much per kilo will “YOU” get for your produce?

I was surprised to be engaged in conversation in the village square cafe regarding the Scottish threat to disembark from the English ship. The Elgin Marbles are also a perennial topic, as well as, of course, the EU and their treatment of the Greeks – Angela Merkel is regarded locally as akin to Mrs. Borgia. A village of farmers? Certainly; but every Cretan is a politician and substantially better educated and well read than the majority of folk encountered in England. (They are just more talkative than Brits ../m)

Meanwhile, the weather grows kinder. The temperature has dropped by 10 degrees Celsius today – so it is now around 28 degrees with a touch of cloud cover. Good fishing weather is closer. To make the most of this period - for three months - the canoe will be going in the water. Maybe I cannot drive, but I can paddle since my arms and shoulders are strong after a year on crutches. The downside is, I can probably only swim in circles and I will need help getting the canoe on top of the car. I have not been blessed to get my body wet yet ( … song coming on). It is a year since I immersed myself in the blessed ocean and closed my mind to the dry unforgiving light. Swimming in a dark and moonless sea is perhaps the most healing of all sleeps.

The weddings and Baptisms continue across the valley. Last night it continued until 6.00 a.m. and although the music was soft, the gunfire was LOUD! This spooked next door's dog again and the poor creature barked until sun up.

We had earthquake a few mornings ago. It was weird. The house grumbled as if with indigestion (or it could have been mine or M's). It shifted fore and aft for some 7/8 seconds only and M thought something was moving about in the wardrobe! What I remember from another earth tremor years ago is that before the ground, my bed and my gin and tonic moved, the birds and cicada stopped and there was a eerie silence. There was no word from them until the earth stood still again. These things make you feel rather small and insignificant. I think that this is important for us to remember.

I was told a story a few days ago by a lady in the village. An uncle of hers was always complaining about the fact that he could not afford shoes and that he had none. In the churchyard one day he met a squatting man who had lost his legs in the war and thus had no need of shoes. The uncle was never heard to complain again and walked happily barefoot thereafter.

So – Look, Smell and Feel the Warmth around You.

Life is Good.

X \ K.

DUVET DAYS

Sign made for the door, which seems to keep people at bay!

Short rations this week. We are having a few duvet days on return from the hospital on Friday. The Doctor gave K the day off on Monday and decided that 35/36 treatments was probably sufficient. K who had been having a rough time was relieved at this, as the bottom had dropped out of his world for ten days or so … or more accurately, the world had dropped out from his …... least said. Thank heavens for Imodium. Each day that passes makes things a little better though but he still needs to adhere to the horrible diet for a couple more weeks.

So, dozens of books, DVDs on the laptop, umpteen cups of tea, two knitted jumpers and three woolly donkeys later, we are very glad to be home for good. HOORAY!

Kind friends have kept us plied with good food and company over the weekend, but we feel in need of a period of P and Q to catch up with ourselves. We will write a fuller blog when we are back in the swing of things.

ON THE HOME STRAIGHT ...

Greek dancing hasn't changed much since Minoan times!

It has been Panegyri this weekend and all the Greeks are holidaying big time. I tried to align it with one of our UK Church Festivals like Pentecost or All Saints, but it is not comparable. The festival is to celebrate the Dormition of the Virgin Mary and rates second in importance to Easter here. The internet stopped working too – a sure sign that lots of people are on line greeting one another by Skype. The weather has been really hot and steamy, sleeping is not easy and mosquitoes are being pursued with the full force of my armoury of plug ins, spray cans and swatters. We are also trying a new product from the UK called “Incognito” which is working very effectively and is a totally natural and organic product. We are impressed so far (and I am not on commission).

While all the rest of the village was celebrating with family, I attacked housework with gusto and got all the road, terrace and floor sweeping done, followed by mops to deal with a few weeks gathering of sand and dust around the house. It looks much better but again, all our terrace flowers have expired without constant attention and we are wondering whether we have got the right sort of compost or earth to keep our garden happy. Fortunately the geraniums seem to be indestructible but the vine was blighted from early on, either by hot winds or rain at the wrong time for the fruit to develop properly; such is life.

The moon rising over the mountains

On Saturday morning, Panormo was heaving with tourists and locals. As all the streets and alley ways are narrow and rustic, the big lorries delivering water and fresh foods after the holiday Friday when everyone comes home to spend time with their families had formed a giant Chinese puzzle of drivers forwarding and reversing into minute gaps available while others shouted “Ella, Ella” and folded and unfolded wing mirrors as required. I nipped out early in the morning for some fresh supplies and got completely boxed in by cars and lorries, so zig-zagged my way to the quayside car park and walked back up to the village, stopping at the little church on the way to light a candle. My brief glimpse of the sea as it glinted in the morning sun was tempting, but I did not have long to stop and I am hoping to catch up with diet and exercise after all the hospital incarceration is behind us. I keep my trainers with me to walk wherever I can around the hospital grounds, but the circuit of the campus or a trip down to the nearest pharmacy is enough on hot, busy roads with ambulances, buses and trucks thundering back and forwards all the time.

Pacific Dreams on the Laptop at the Hostel

As far as the poor patient is concerned, well, we were warned. We have reached the trickiest part of the radiotherapy treatment and poor old K is spending lots of the time rushing to the loo since nothing he eats or drinks – even with the beastly low residue diet seems to make much difference. A prescription of Imodium did little to help and it is now getting hard to judge the right time to make the hour's journey in the car from the hospital to home because there is no place to stop on the way. 6 more sessions and counting ….. thank the Lord for Tena pants and all the home nursing tips I learned last year!

All this means that we have been closeted away a lot and doubly glad to have our TV set with us, because even if the internet is down, we are running through all our DVDs and watching all the Directors' Cut versions and deleted scenes, so that we don't get too weary of the same old films all the time. Effectively, we have missed out on two summers running and I am longing to return to some sort of normality and a chance to celebrate. The five days at the hospital hostel drag slowly and the two days at home intensively washing, ironing, cooking and cleaning form an oddly disorientating routine. I had been up since 5.00 a.m. this Sunday morning making bread, a cottage pie, some pork patties (akin to sausage rolls, but without the resource of sausage meat and without onions which aren't allowed), doing a mammoth pile of washing and ironing before the temperatures became too hot at 40C. Sleep had been impossible so I thought I would start on all the chores early. Having finished the cooking and looking forward to my morning coffee, I started to attack the resulting mound of crocks in the sink.  Meanwhile, the village neighbours were calling to me through the window ... “Where are you today? There are still leaves that need sweeping up on your doorstep!” Ggggrrrr! Kimon explained that I was cooking for the next seven days but I had to show my face with a dustpan and brush, if only for a minute. Being a Greek housewife isn't for sissies.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

Not from Art School - this is displayed at the Archaeological Museum

The Art School has opened again. Tim and Janice, our teachers have returned to Crete after an exciting year or two off teaching in Peru.

So it was wonderful to take the day off from radiotherapy minding to get home for 36 hours midweek and pootle up to Kastellos to catch up with the Art Class crowd. Some had been in the process of having homes built, others had been having a few health problems too, but it was GREAT to see everyone again while we tackled “dry art contour drawing” with gusto and shared news along the way. The morning ended with large drawings in charcoal and chalk and very dirty hands! Since I have been living, breathing and sleeping homecare, nursing, hospitals, doctors and medical miscellanea for such an age, I was trying to keep a lot of updates low key and avoid boring everybody and straying into the realms to “too much information”. No matter how hard I tried to steer away from hospital traumas, it was nearly impossible, but I did my valiant best.

The weekend was raging hot, but it was lovely to catch up with friends on Saturday for a belated birthday and “hooray-I'm-back-home-in-Crete” meal with our pals Stuart and Kathy.  We also spent an energetic hour trying to release a sparrow that had fallen down the chimney and was flapping about inside the log burner every time I walked past.  This is the moment when you realise that having mosquito netting over all the windows and doors is a bit of a disadvantage.  Our idea was to catch the sparrow in K's fishing net and deposit him outside.  In the event, the bird flew straight through the holes in the net and round the house for a few minutes while we grappled with mosquito screens but quite quickly exited through the "scream door" in the front porch, none the worse for his ordeal.  

We telephoned the UK estate agents about the sale of the house in the UK. It seems that they have loads of viewings but not much real interest. I suppose I will need to get there and make some decisions about making the house more attractive. I thought the last house sale was the one to end all house sales, but it seems not. As I want to return to the UK as soon as the current treatment is done, it is probably as well that things are not proceeding too rapidly and there is somewhere to stay. We are not sure whether K will make the trip or not, but I hope so.

Gregory's coffee shop is a haven of near normality ...

We found a small harbour and cafeneon, not far from Heraklion.  An ideal place for K to
dream about having a fishing boat and to spend a morning.

I got back to Heraklion on Wednesday to the hospital with freshly made bread and a few supplies. Thursday, we queued for aeons to get the definitive low-down on what is happening next as regards radiotherapy. What with the language difficulty and everyone in a rush, K was not quite clear what was happening and we have been given so many versions, we wanted to dig our heels in and get the facts straight. Firstly we were told by the Urology Department that 4 weeks radiotherapy would proceed with hormone treatment, then when we arrived at the radiotherapy department we were told that there would be no hormone treatment but there would be 7 weeks of radiotherapy plus a little chemo. Then the idea of chemo was dropped. Then there was some mention of this session of radiotherapy stopping at the end of the week but differently focused treatment would start at some later date and so on. Confused by all this? Yes, we were too. The Doctor and Radiographer were very defensive about our questions, so we explained that we did need to know exactly what was happening, about the hostel booking and that no one had explained the process to us clearly at the outset. We thought it best not to mention that we never did receive a diet plan either and have been relying on one published by Nottingham Hospital for patients having radiotherapy to the pelvic area. Thank God for the internet and the advice of UK friends; we would have been completely in the dark otherwise.  

Anyway, all the Greek patients wait around for entire days to get seen while English patients are regarded as being a bit of a pain. How dare we have the presumption to waste important people's time by expecting answers to questions? It does not help to see British TV adverts for, say, Macmillan Nurses or Cancer Care where medical professionals seem to have unlimited time for social niceties, one-to-one explanations, help and support “at a time like this” … the milk of human kindness uppermost ... and we ponder whether there is any truth to this representation of care back home or whether we are imagining la-la land. One poor lady we know from the hostel had received chemo treatment in the morning and had been waiting since 7.00 a.m. to see the Doctor. It was now 5.00 p.m. The thoughtfully provided water cooler had run out of cups days ago, so she had had nothing to eat or drink all day waiting for the Doctor to see her. She did not dare leave the queue to miss her turn although she had tried to scoop up water from the wash basin tap in the loo. (I wouldn't fancy it, even when well and healthy). I left K in the queue and toddled off the the shop to get bottles of water all round and bought a few packs of cups on my next trip to the supermarket. This is so normal in a place which is understaffed at the best of times whilst the holiday season can wipe out any of the rudimentary systems in place. From my vantage point, it is very hard to find out what the systems are unless there are kindly other patients to tell you because nobody else has the time. The absence of ONE member of staff is really telling and the poor lone doctor left working this week must be at breaking point.  We have to keep reminding ourselves that the economic crisis in Greece is not his fault and he is at the sharp end of it, like everyone else here.

How all these artifacts in the Museum survived centuries of earth movements is a bit of a mystery!  Hot bath anyone?

Hey ho! All these grumbles were interrupted by my bed shaking like a jelly on Friday morning and after New Zealand and another last year, I knew instantly what it was …. EARTH TREMOR! 34 km deep and 4.7 magnitude. Kimon did not feel it in the basement but the hospital is the only place I have felt them in Crete.

We will be so glad when this is over and we can have a rest from white coats for a good, long time. 12 sessions to go and we are praying that the machinery holds together, since every day of delay costs extra.  

Kalo tiki!

COUNTING STITCHES

 The countdown to the end of K's hospital treatment is continuing and we are half-way through the daily radiotherapy now. We are in a weekly groove - driving to Heraklion every Monday and returning on Friday to have a quick laundry turnaround, cook a few casseroles and dishes which can be easily digested and microwaved and back on the road come Monday morning with a Check List which has to be gone through each time. So far we have not forgotten the kettle, the power leads, or clean clothes and bedding, but I have a complete muddle head over what we have in the fridge at either end and whether my walking shoes are at home or away. Kimon stumps off to the department on his crutches each day and queues for ages until it is his turn.  He seems to enjoy listening to the conversation in the queue with other patients.  The swimming bag is kept in the boot of the car – just in case we get the opportunity to go and he is feeling well enough to go out. The end is beginning to be in sight.

Last week was a short week. The radiotherapy machine needed to be serviced, so we had a four day break from hospital routine and the bung-you-up diet, which I have now completely rejected and which, unfortunately means that I have to cope with two lots of cooking rather than one. White bread, white pasta, no veg and lots of meat and fish is not any sort of diet that I can live with. K only can for the duration and then we will be back to our sought-after Cretan diet with lots of salads and olive oil and as much wholemeal bread as he wants and much less red meat than we have been recommended by the doctors for the duration.

All our items arrived via Nomad on Tuesday.  Great, we now have TV and it works!

There is a kitchen at the hostel, but the practicalities of cooking nourishing meals on one stove with the six or so other ladies who are taking care of their important others is a bit of a challenge. It is interesting to see what the ladies make of the dietary restrictions and I peek under saucepan lids to see liver cooking in some sort of gravy; masses of potatoes bubbling away, fish soup, and stew. From the oven emerge trays of home made bread, big pork chops and Greek sausages (which are a bit too spicy for me). All in all, it is a bit easier to make some enriched stocks at home and reassemble them later a bit of a distance from the jostling in the kitchen. Greek wives always look disapproving of anything I make, but Kimon seems OK so far and his weight is remaining steady. His blood tests are holding out OK, although we have to look out for white blood cells and platelets to see that they are not getting too low.

On Wednesday evening, a nice Greek lady (with very good English) turned up with a box of art materials and taught people staying in the hostel various handicrafts which included tissue paper flowers, painted stones, and we all had fun daubing and borrowing each others brushes and paints. Another wife of a patient was really taken with the bolero I was knitting for my little grand-daughter, so the next day I went in search of a photocopier to let her have the pattern. Kimon tried to follow me in the hospital admin building lift and it got stuck between floors. In a small enclosed area, he got hotter and hotter. Fortunately his mobile phone worked, so having alerted me, I was able to summon help and he was only incarcerated for half an hour or so until they got the winch working on the first floor. Fortunately he didn't miss his treatment!

The hostel receptionist has asked me to knit a jumper for her newborn grandson. A first size jumper in the time of 15 more treatments … should be possible!

In Skepasti, it is full-on beef tomato and melon season, and next to the French people's house is a field simply full of wonderful ripe tomatoes, most of which have been picked and crated. They brought me two bags of the discarded tomatoes which I am struggling with. I am still deliberating about acquiring a freezer. Fortunately, I had instructions from Valerie in England on how to bottle tomatoes and in the middle of a very hot day and all the laundry turnaround, I was processing large piles of lovely fruit and simmering bottled tomatoes on the stove, muttering ungratefully and somewhat reluctantly because passata, tinned tomatoes and puree are so very inexpensive to buy in the shops. Anyway, we have five jars of pasta sauce which I hope will last for a few weeks yet. I thought that the oversize Ali Baba terracotta pots used for storage in the kitchen would be the best place to put the jars, being reasonably cool and dark inside. We will see whether this works. I will also plead with the French not to bring me any more at the moment. When we are through with all this, it will be easier.

Time to catch up ... at Geronimos in Panormo

The CIC are organising a meal out in Panormo tonight (Sunday) which is nice for us because we cannot get to see our friends easily until radiotherapy is over. So I am casting off for now and will catch up again soon. As news goes, things are a bit uneventful, but so far, so good.